KT,
You are missing the point. People that call themselves republicans or conservatives and then expand the % of GDP in the hands of government, go to war, give more power or money to the Fed and IMF, give bailouts to corporations of any type, use government to enrich friends etc.. are NOT conservative or anything else associated with the libertarian right.
Like I said, even if they are to the right of the currently fashionable left, that's like saying Satan is more evil than Hitler. ;-)
The role of government and socialist institutions in our society has been expanding for many decades regardless of which party was in power because the real "right" has not had power. It's always just varying degrees of left.
Now considering you are so far to the left, you probably perceive those that are less to the left than you as being "the right", but they are NOT. If they were, there would have been a period where we rolled back much of the last few decades instead of expanding it or at best slowing the growth.
The entire spectrum has moved so far to the left, some democrats of just a couple of decades ago would be to the right of most current republicans on many issues and be totally intolerable to the current left.
The only prominent libertarian in office is Ron Paul. He's so far away from his own party on most issues, they don't want him. Yet his ideas are a perfect representation of the libertarian right. On many issues his ideas would have been mainstream just a few decades ago. The libertarian right lost all those battles to the left decades ago because left has been in charge (to varying degrees) since early last century and accelerated that power with Roosevelt etc..
The very long term trend toward socialism was predicted by the great libertarian minds. You can't have a little socialism. Once you expand government, it's vitually impossible to undo it. Then as other problems occur (typically related to the last government intervention, but not always), the solution tends to become more goverment etc.. and on and on you march.
Nothing fits as neatly as I am describing it, but there's no doubt who has had the power. |
